Quiet
by Penny Wishes
Summary: Harry sits alone in his four-poster in his seventh year, looking back on everything that has happened, all the deaths, all the friends he has lost and the ones he still keeps, and trys to find quiet....


Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Some of the words, part of the storyline, are based on the song "Quiet" which I also do not own, that song belongs to John Mayer and his associates.   
  
Summary: Harry sits alone in his four-poster bed, curtains drawn, scared, wishing, hoping, dreaming.   
  
Rated: PG  
  
Ships: Harry/Ginny tiny bit of Harry/Luna and Ron/Hermione  
  
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Quiet  
  
By Penny  
  
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Midnight. A boy, almost a man now, with a man's eyes, eyes that had seen far too much, wandered up the stairs to the Gryffindor boy's dormitory. He glanced behind him before turning the knob. Behind him sat his two best friends, fighting, joking, and whispering. Head boy and Head girl. He turned the knob slowly, sliding inside, hissed the words to fade the glow of his wand, locked the door behind him, and fell into bed.   
  
Everything seemed to be at its end. School was almost over, war had killed most everyone. They were at the end. And they weren't winning. He took off his glasses, round wire frames, and set them on his bedside table.   
  
Everything was at its end, maybe even he himself would die in the next few days, weeks, months, years. Maybe the world would end. It was just a regular Sunday night, but it seemed different, too loud.   
  
There wasn't a sound, not that he could hear, safe, or maybe not so, in his four-poster bed, with the curtains drawn all around. No movement. Everything had stopped, stopped still. And maybe, just maybe, the world HAD ended, and he, he was stuck in the stopped world, forever. Never dying, never living, just stuck, stuck in the quiet. Stuck in the loud.   
  
It didn't make sense. It was dead silent, and yet his head spun in the insanity of yelling, screaming, crying, that surrounded his head. Silent, except he couldn't find the silent inside his head.   
  
He could see eyes, wild, dark eyes, full of love and memory, and care... And those eyes were gone. And he could hear screaming and crying, and realized that it was him making the noise. The noise inside his head, the headache only he had, the noise only he heard.   
  
Those eyes that had seen so much, fought so hard, they had closed so easily, they had fallen under the veil of death, and he was to blame. He could hear a voice. A gruff, deep voice, a voice of teasing and rebellion, a voice of love, although it was masked love, it was love nonetheless.   
  
"You should have DIED! Died rather then betray your friends! As we would have done for you." The words echoed a vision of them being shouted at a short, wide man, wormtail. And that's just what he had done. Died, died for him...   
  
Would he, would he die for his friends? Would he have died for his godfather, if Sirius hadn't done it for him first?   
  
The curtains seemed to squeeze in, closing in on him, suffocating him, the curtains transforming into his fears. His greatest fears.   
  
He saw the soft shiny vibrant hair lying limp on the hospital bed pillow. Heard the staggered breathing. Closed his eyes and let the red shine reflect in his mind, forever remembered. Dancing inside his eyelids. Tried to replace the heaves and wheezes of that breathe with her sweet voice, blunt when needed, soft and kind, when wanted. But he couldn't hear it. Couldn't hear her sweet tones over the rasp of her breathing.   
  
"My father says, that you can communicate with people in comas through thought, if you concentrate all your positive energy-"   
  
"Shut up!" He had screamed at the blonde girl standing behind him. "Luna, just be quiet. I need quiet." But he couldn't get quiet. And he couldn't get the sound he wanted. Surrounded, and alone. Locked in a cage of fear and anger... and Confusion. Why Ginny?   
  
"They go after the ones you love," Luna had said seriously, and calmly as if she had read his mind. she had stared hard at Ginny for a long time, and then added, "I haven't been targeted."   
  
Harry thrust his head into his pillow covering his ears. Trying to make the memories go away. Why had he told her that he hated her? She hadn't done anything wrong, she had just talked... And he had wanted quiet. Why had he said he hated them all, hated life, wanted it to end? Did he want it to end?   
  
All the memories swirled around in his mind, screaming, crying, yelling, laughing, happy, sad... but it was all vicious. All of it made him want to scream and at the same time laugh hysterically.   
  
Dim light from the window squeezed through the crack in his curtains and shone on the side of his face. He lifted his head from the pillow and opened his eyes, trying hard to make the sound die away. The sound in his head. He strained his ears trying to hear any outside sound, but searching for one in particular.   
  
"He's going to come after me Harry, I've got to go into hiding," Remus Lupin had said seriously.   
  
"But if you go into hiding how are you supposed to tell us what to do? Your first in command now, now that S-"   
  
"Tonks, Kingsley, Moody, Arthur, and the teachers we've already gone over, are all in contact with me, if you need anything, you can talk to me through them. But don't worry I'll be near... I promised your Godfather I'd stay near.." He added softly biting his cheek and inhaling a long breath shakily.   
  
"How near?" Harry had asked feeling dumb, like a child whining about an imaginary monster. Only this time, he wanted the monster with him.   
  
"Once a month, at full moon, if you listen closely, you'll be able to hear me." He had said.   
  
Maybe it wasn't full moon. Or maybe it was just that it was too loud for him to be able to hear anything. Or maybe too quiet. Too quiet on the outside, yet too loud inside. He was vaguely aware of people moving around outside of his curtains.   
  
'Ron must be finally going to bed,' he thought to himself resentfully. They were always together lately. Still rowing so much that Hermione would cry, and that Ron would lock himself away in the boy's dorm and attempt to curse himself. Still joking and teasing and laughing so much that any ordinary person would think they were engaged. Seemingly unafraid, or maybe unaware that either one of them could be the next to go. They still acted like they were regular students, at a regular school, under regular circumstances.   
  
Lately all he got from either of them was a "Be careful"   
  
And on the other hand, when things started happening, they were so concerned and protective of him that they treated him like a bomb that could explode at any second. As if he couldn't be trusted to do anything alone, for fear he may do something stupid and get killed.   
  
"Harry?" A low voice hissed through the curtain. What was Ron doing waking him up at this hour?   
  
"What?" Harry snapped.   
  
"Um, your missing breakfast," Ron replied pulling open the curtains, light spilled into his bed hurting his eyes. He looked at the clock on his bedside table. Almost nine o'clock. He had been awake all night, and not even heard Ron go in to bed.   
  
A constant hum of talking and footsteps had started and he hadn't even realized it over the sound of his own thoughts. And now the hum was drowning out his own thoughts, and he was safe from his thoughts...  
  
At least by daylight.   
  
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Hope you enjoyed this fanfic, if you did (and even if you didn't) please drop me a note, on what you liked best, what you liked least, or anyway I can make improvements. Flames are accepted, but if they're senseless, then I'll just laugh. And if you DID like this, then check out my other fics! 


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